| ▲ | moepstar 4 hours ago |
| I believe this is the first ESP to gain Ethernet capability? I totally wish that a board would come with PoE… Because as it is right now, powering a fleet of those with USB power supplies is annoying as fsck… |
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| ▲ | elcritch 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Nah, ESP32's have had ethernet capability for a while and ESP-IDF supports it well. I've been using one I built for 5+ years now. Unfortunately RMII (ethernet phy) interface takes up a lot of the GPIO pins. This part looks like it'll remedy that issue. There's two ESP32 boards that have been around for a while with PoE: - https://www.tme.com/us/en-us/details/esp32-poe/development-k...
- https://wesp32.com/ I'm more hopeful for single-pair ethernet to gain momentum though! Deterministic, faster than CANBUS, single pair, with power delivery: https://www.hackster.io/rahulkhanna/sustainable-real-time-la... |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | Geof25 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The original ESP32 has Ethernet as well, I believe in the form of RMII. Then it has been removed from the chip, never specified the reason. |
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| ▲ | amelius 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Because as it is right now, powering a fleet of those with USB power supplies is annoying as fsck… Therefore, wifi is more convenient than ethernet. You don't need long cables, just a local power source. |
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| ▲ | albuic an hour ago | parent [-] | | > You don't need long cables, just a local power source Which means batteries that have to be replaced and maintained or cables... So ethernet with PoE or even better SPE (single pair Ethernet) with PoDL (power over data lines which is PoE for SPE) is the best from my point of view | | |
| ▲ | amelius 36 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I mean, if I just look at my house. There is just one ethernet outlet, but many power sockets. If I want to connect devices all over my house, the best way is to use wifi and usb power adapters. Not ethernet. Both solutions require 1 cable per device, but the first solution would require only short and thin cables, and the second solution would require very long cables which I don't know even how to do properly without milling my walls. |
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| ▲ | 3form 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This would be great indeed. On that note, why does the PoE capability often add such a big proportion of the price of various items? Is the technology really costly for some reason, or is it just more there's fairly low demand and people are still willing to pay? |
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| ▲ | jwr 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | PoE is not obvious to implement (take it from someone who has done it with a fair share of mistakes), uses more expensive components that normal ethernet, takes up more space on the board, makes passing emissions certification more complex, and is more prone to mistakes that ruin boards in the future, causing support/warranty issues. In other words, a bag of worms: not impossible to handle, but something you would rather avoid if possible. | | |
| ▲ | ldng 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | And what would a better alternative look like ? | | |
| ▲ | timschmidt 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wouldn't call it "better", but the least-effort path among hobbyists and low end gear is often 12v or 24v sent over a pair with Gnd and a forgiving voltage regulator on the other end. |
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| ▲ | easygenes 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A full-module add-on in this power class is about $7 at 1,000 unit scale [0]. It would be around $3 with your own custom PCB design in terms of BoM addon at scale. That’s power only. Add another dollar or two for 10/100 PHY. The trick is as others have said in what adding it to your design does in terms of complicating compliance design. [0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/silvertel/AG9705-... | |
| ▲ | throwup238 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ethernet is already one of the most expensive standards because you need magnetics for isolation. Adding power on top of that is genuinely expensive. | |
| ▲ | Etheryte 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Whenever you combine two things into one, the complexity and cost go up considerably. A regular coffee machine is pretty cheap. Add high pressure so it can make espresso and it gets considerably more expensive. Add milk so it can make cappuccino, again more complex and expensive. The same holds for electronics. Isolating power when it's alone is fairly straightforward. It gets considerably more tricky and hence more expensive the moment you want to place any kind of a meaningful data signal in its vicinity. | |
| ▲ | solarkraft 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I’m sure the other commenters are right, but I’m guessing market segmentation may play a role here too. |
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